India Flamenco

My dream journey to India. The last time I was in there was 2012 and 2013. This trip began as a one week holiday and morphed into a four week work-play vacation.

I began in Kerala, somewhere I had dreamed of going for 30 years! In Kerala the beauty was abound, at the end of Onum Festival and then into the hills of Munnar to see tea plantations and spice farms. My highlight was being invited to watch classes at the premiere school of Kathakali dance, Kalamandalam. I watched the boys and girls being trained, and then the next night a 9-hour concert that started at 9pm and went until 6am. Wow. I was also invited to watch the pre-show make up back stage with all the dancers (male) preparing. This was not a tourist show. I was incredibly privileged.

Naturally, I wanted to see familiar friends in Kolkata and this lead to a week of Flamenco and Cross-cultural dance workshops at The Doodle Room, hosted by Suman Sarawagi. The dancers that attended were so committed and vibrant. Burgeoning on Pooja time they battled the pandals in the streets to get to class each day. I gave a lecture and performance demonstration for Bharatiya Samskriti Samsad on Flamenco, its origins and changes over the years and The Pickle Factory hosted a two-day public talk at Max Mueller, on the same topic and an interview with journalist Abhijit Ganguly for Up Words online-zine.

Surjit Nongmeikapam then invited me to teach Flamenco workshops in his home town Imphal, Manipur. Artist-led organisation, Nachom Arts Foundation were very generous. I stayed with lovely activist organisation, Nandini and Ram and taught workshops for a large group of young dancers, actors and others. Nicky Chandam, a storyteller and photographer with a keen eye hosted a talk on Flamenco and how artists are pushing the boundaries on gender and identity politics. On the final day, I was treated to as a day out at Loktai Lake and I gave and a studio performance at night. As in Kerala, I was invited to see a local Manipuri dance company in rehearsal, Progressive Artist Laboratory. This was so special and again I witnessed something no tourists would.

I returned to Kolkata for some crazy Pooja action for one day and then swiftly to Mumbai where I had intended to spend time hanging out with old friends and crashing a Bollywood film set. But instead this turned into a week of evening rehearsals with two lovely musicians as we prepared for a corporate event at the end of the week back in Kolkata. I was taken under the wing of Ralphy Jhirad, a highly respected member of India’s Jewish community. We visited the National Performing Arts theatre, the synagogue and the bank which the Sassoon family established in Mumbai. *Read my next blog for National Spanish Day in Kolkata.